The Trust Foundation Understanding trust issues in the digital era.

I found this article on e-consultancy.com. The blog has a lot of resources for information on how to establish trust with clients as a consultant. The following blog post outlines 5 things that will enhance online customer trust and 5 things that will make customers skeptical of your online services or resources.

"Reports of online fraud are often enough to make customers think twice about shopping on the internet, so how can you reassure them?
There are a number of things that retailers can do to make customers feel safe about shopping online, as well as mistakes that can damage trust in an e-commerce website."

“In 2006, a fake profile led to the suicide of a 13-year-old Missouri girl. A classmate’s mother originally created the profile to find out if Megan Meier was saying anything bad about her daughter. But then it was used to gain Meier’s confidence and then to tear her down. Angry messages went back and forth, and it ended with Meier hanging herself.

There’s also the need to prevent pedophiles from contacting children online. MySpace has agreed with different states’ attorney generals to adopt better technologies that will help identify underage users so they can be protected from predators, but the social networking site hasn’t figured out how it’s going to do it.

The vast majority of sites don’t do anything to try to confirm the identities of members. The sites also don’t want to absorb the cost of trying to prove the identity of their members. Also, identifying minors is almost impossible because there isn’t enough information out there to authenticate their identity.”